Tenuta Dell'Ornellaia @Senses, KL Hilton

ORNELLAIA

If I have a daughter next time, I'll name her Ornellaia. It's such a beautiful name and it's even more beautiful when reflected on these fine bottles of Super Tuscan. Tenuta Dell'Ornellaia is a italian producer of Super Tuscan wine in the DOC of Bolgheri in Toscana. It's considered as one of Italy's top Bordeaux-style red wines alongside labels such as Gaia and Sassicaia. While I have tried the former here, I've yet to experience my first sip of Sassicaia!

We were able to taste the Le Volte 2008, Le Serre Nuove 2006 and 2007, and also compare the two vintages of the Ornellaia 2006 and 2007. Paired with wines is a five-course Italian themed dinner at Senses in KL Hilton.

Le Serre Nouve Dell'Ornellaia is a "second vin" of Ornellaia. Produced primarily from the younger vineyards, the wine combines the pedigree of the flagship wine with freshness, accessibility and softness together with a structure, balance and intensity typical of the great terroir of the Estate.

Le Serre Nuove dell'Ornellaia 2007 presents a complex nose, with intense red berry fruit, sweet spices, and balsamic mint and eucalyptus accents. Intense in colour, it's silky on the palate, while displaying an elegant, vibrant tannic structure, and fminty accents. Le Serre Nuove 2006 displays a rich, mature personality. There's red berry fruits, cocoa, and spice aromas. On the palate it has well polished tannins and rich fruit supported by perfectly balanced acidity. It's a union of Merlot's richness, Petit Verdot's freshness, and the Cabernets' structure.

Le Volte embodies the Tenuta Dell'Ornellaia's philosophy, a Tuscan wine that speaks the same language as Ornellaia. This 2008 wine displays hints of wild berry and sweet spice. It's full and opulent on the palate. It's a pleasurable Super Tuscan. Good, but still young and I think it'll be good in another 5-7 years to come.

Sales Manager of the prestigious Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, Mr Giovanni Mazzoni.



The Ornellaia of Ornellaia

Here comes the highlight of the dinner - Ornellaia, Tenuta dell’Ornellaia’s flagship wine, which was first produced with vintage 1985, from an extremely careful selection of the vineyards grown on the Estate. Ornellaia has constantly received top ratings from the most influential opinion leaders around the world.

Ornellaia 2006 is filled with lush depth and ‘exuberance’ because the 2006 vintage was extremely unusual, with a great many quirks that, taken individually, could easily have spelled disaster. Instead, they balanced each other out, and in the end produced a wine of considerable grace and harmony coupled with unusual structure and power. It is no doubt a powerful, concentrated wine where its intensity is obvious. Its complex, rich bouquet is complemented by sweet, dense-packed tannins and a lively acidity, and all of its components are in admirable harmony creating a very elegant wine. Good finish.

The 2007 has a nose of fully-ripened fruit, dark wild berry fruit and spice, with balsamic notes. On the palate, it's glossy, and has velvet-smooth tannins which immediately impress, along with intense notes of fruit and spice. It also has a long-lingering finish. The 2007 Ornellaia is definitely one of the greats and is one of the legendary wines of our time. The wine is one of the three most collected wines coming out of Italy. From the info I obtained, this wine should be cellared until 2016 and maturing will continue through 2026.

I truly enjoyed the Ornellaia wines.

The menu is as follows:

Wild Sea Bass Fillet on Rocket, Nuts and Beetroot Puree

Stuffed Quails with Mushrooms and Foie Gras Barley Risotto Cake, Truffle Foam

Roasted Prime Rib Florentine-style
with Grilled Vegetables Timbale, Cavolo Nero and Pepper Sauce

Taleggio Cheese with Extra Virgin Olive Oil Butter

Semifreddo with “Torroncino” Berries and Balsamic Vinegar Reduction

Grappa & Olive Oil

The grappa served at the end of the dinner is from the estate and so is the complimentary gift of a bottle of Olive Oil. Just what I need since the olive oil at home is finished. I guess this would be my prized bottle as you can't really find this in town. The food at Senses was impressive too. It's really creative.

Anyone want to cook me a meal? I can contribute some Ornellaia Olive Oil! Hehe....

Durian & Alcohol

Let me give you a testimony on durians and alcohol at the end of this post.

I was at Grand Palace @ Pavilion KL the last week for a very special dinner. It's something that you can't even buy with money because one of the restaurant's partners' wife decided to cook us her Hainanese Lamb Shank with curry. Even when my car is in the workshop, I had to wait for my sister to come home from work to borrow her car so that I can drive to Pavilion to taste this wonderful pot of lamb shank!

This was wonderful but sorry it's not on the menu!

We were treated like some guinea pigs trying out some new dishes from the restaurants and one of them is the 8 Treasures Stuffed Roast Chicken. The chicken is roast to a crispy golden brown on the outside and stuffed with mushrooms and water chestnuts in the inside which gives the chicken meat lots of flavours. It was better than stuffed turkeys! This can be found on the menu now and it's absolutely delicious.

Another vegetable dish that I don't fancy but I couldn't help but try some was the bittergourd cooked with eggs. It was really bitter and the only thing I ate after that was the eggs. I can tell ypu, I really dislike bittergourd!

Another dish that was done beautifully was the peking duck. Instead of just eating the duck skin with the condiments, we requested that the skin be cut with some meat together. It is actually much better eating it with meat than just the duck skin. The pancake that was used to wrap the skin is actually made of flour and it's made freshly here everyday instead of the usual egg skin that was bought from somewhere.

The highlight of the dinner was dessert! You see, in my 26 years of life, I've never been served a plate of durians, as in the real durians in its original state on a dinner table at a restaurant! We had to wait until all the patrons to go off before the durians could be served!

And since we are at a restaurant, we ate the durians in the most courteous way. I had durians on a spoon while some of them ate with chopsticks! It was hilarious to see us serving durians on a plate and eating it without dirtying our hands!

It's also almost suicidal eating durians and also drinking Macallan 18 years sherry oaks at the same time. I was actually very hesistant to try the durians because I have been drinking throughout dinner but I was told that the combination doesn't kill and all those people there are living testimonials! Just one advice, don't try it if you are sick or weak because your system might not handle it well. So far, I've read that a person got admitted into the hospital after eating lots of durians and curry.

Who says durians and alcohol don't mix?

I ended up eating 4 pieces of durians and drinking another 2 glasses of Macallan after that. After this experience, I can proudly say that I busted the myth and in fact, I'm the living proof that durians and alcohol didn't kill me!

Cheers to that!